


Ground zero

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV), The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: 12 Days of Ficmas, Gen, MCD upfront, vague m/m overtones but not overt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd been a wizard, once.  Before this goddamn war, before the one before that, before a million tiny machines stole the magic in the world.  Before Miles Matheson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ground zero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lodessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/gifts).



> Anyone who tumbles with me will know of [the obsession I share with lodessa: Miles Matheson is actually Harry Dresden.](http://jaqofspades.tumblr.com/post/104543798347/lodessa-jaqofspades-not-only-does-the) Just trust us. He really, really is. (And even if the characters don't mesh in every way, Billy Burke was BORN to play Harry Dresden. Of this there is no doubt!)
> 
> This story sketches out a possible start to a big, sweeping arc I want to explore ... one day.

He'd been a wizard, once. Before this goddamn war, before the one before that, before a million tiny machines stole the magic in the world. Before Miles Matheson.

It'd been an easy enough thing, to steal his fucked-up life. Mab had somehow heard about a couple of soldiers buried in a hole on the wrong side of a line in Afghanistan, held prisoner by a people so bleak and fanatical that even Mab's lot usually steered clear of them. Emphasis on the usually. When Mab had suggested he might like to run interference, he'd raised an eyebrow and quizzed her understanding of the word 'might'. Apparently she thought it more regal than 'get your ass over there pronto, Dresden.'

And surprise, surprise, one of the guys turned out to be a dead ringer for him. Like – no magical interference necessary. And also, actual dead. He's trying to figure out how Mab had planned to use that right about the time he realises the other guy is clinging to life like a limpet, stubborn as he is pretty. (It's one of Monroe's weapons, right? No use pretending like it doesn't exist. He'd done a lot of mental manoeuvring on the issue over the years, but all that acrobatic self-denial got exhausting after a while. So Monroe was pretty. Move on.)

So Harry Dresden had walked out of that hellhole as Miles Matheson, Bass Monroe strung over his shoulders like the fucking millstone he'd eventually prove to be. Turned out new Miles was even worse at moving on than old Miles was, and from the moment Bass lifted his head from the pillow and croaked “Miles?” he was screwed.

Not literally. Apparently they didn't do that. Or liked to pretend they didn't, given how hurt Bass seemed to be when Miles-no-longer-Harry jumped the first time he felt the other man's hand trail down his back.

“You allright, brother?” he'd rasped, his voice still wrecked by too much screaming. Harry's winter-struck heart had shivered at all the emotion there, and all he'd been able to do was hang his head and mumble something about not liking to be touched.

Monroe had understood, having apparently done the prisoner-of-war thing more than once. He curses himself now for putting that burden on the man. Because apparently Miles had gone in after Monroe, tried to rescue him, and been captured himself as a result.

“You just have to keep on savin' me, don't you brother,” Monroe has sniffled into his shoulder, and that's how he finds out about his new best friend's family, rotting in four-person grave in Indiana. “You should never have taken the gun off me. We would have both been better off.”

“No, Bass, no,” he mumbles, and Winter Knight or not, he is going to kill Mab the next time he sees her. He thinks about magicking himself straight out of the situation but finds he can't do that to Bass.

And then the lights go out, and his magic sputters out with them, leaving him as powerless as any other man in this fucked up world. 'Cept still a warrior. Who learns to use Matheson's gun pretty damn quick, and already knows how to use a sword.

Turns out that's all you need to build a nation. That, and Monroe's smile, a magic so powerful that it can charm any man, woman or child into following you. And, you know, terrify them when that brittle sanity finally slips, and you're too cold, too remote, too Winter, to bring him back.

So you leave.

And then a girl who stinks of Summer elbows her way into your life, interrupting your attempt to drink this stolen life to death. And where you once became Miles for Bass, you stay Miles for Charlie, and Nora, and Danny, and Rachel, and … Bass.

Always Bass, because finally, you've figured out something you suspect the real Miles Matheson already knew. 

He's nothing without you. And somehow, in this skin, in this life, you're nothing without him. Not even the Winter Knight, because the mantle is slipping with the magic to anchor it. And you haven't seen hide nor hair of Mab in 16 years.

But if there's one thing Harry Dresden still knows, it's this. Faerie doesn't forget, and Mab sure as hell doesn't do coincidences. So the fact that you're snuggled up with the woman who created the pesky little bugs that ate all the magic in the world? Not to mention the doughboy that gave 'em life?

Somebody around here's gonna be ground zero for the war to bring it all back. Now you've just got to figure out who it's gonna be.

And put Miles Matheson at their back.

_fin_

_*_

_Disclaimer: This is a transformative work (fan fiction) as protected under the fair use provisions of international copyright law. I am not profiting from this work, nor do I make any claims to, or intend any infringement on, the intellectual properties held by the rights owner._


End file.
